Gems With Friends Preview

What good is a gem if not shared with friends?

Generally speaking, gems are awesome. They’re shiny, beautiful, and often valuable. Furthermore, they show up in more puzzle games than I care to count. Such is the case with Zynga’s Gems With Friends, a title that shares more than a cursory resemblance to the average match-3. But despite the visual parity, there’s plenty more to the game than matching same-colored pieces.

Each gem in the game contains a number, and combining three gems that feature the same number will lead to a single gem with a higher number. That gem then disappears from the playing field, and the player earns points. The higher the number on the gems you combine, the more points that you ultimately receive.

Given the “with Friends” appendage, the game will have a heavy focus on multiplayer. You can play against friends and strangers, and take turns seeing who can score the most points in a given round. The game allows you to play against up to 20 people at any given time, though at that amount you may start to feel a tad overwhelmed. Or not! Who am I to say such a thing about you, anyway?

The game has already been released in Canada, but Zynga plans on rolling it out worldwide here in not too long. I’m sorry I can’t offer you a specific release date, but perhaps this whole event will teach you an important lesson about patience.